Issue 3: Summer 2009 Criminology in Focus THE NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINOLOGY Inside this issue: The event will begin with a day In the following pages you will find conference for those studying for a PhD out about the latest news from the on Sunday 11th July 2010, followed by Department, our current research and three days of the main conference. The what our students and staff have been conference theme is: up to. We hope that you find Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Criminology in Focus informative and HUMAN Dilemmas and Diversity in Criminology interesting. Please do let us know RIGHTS what you think. HUMAN The conference theme gives primacy to the increasingly important relationship Department News ........................2 WRONGS between criminology and human rights, Dilemmas but has been framed in deliberately Staff Focus.....................................5 and Diversity in Criminology inclusive terms as a way of capturing the Research Focus..............................7 imagination of all criminologists. Student Focus ...............................8 The conference will be held at the University of Leicester Conference Centre Alumni Focus...............................11 in Oadby. This will provide an excellent base for the 500 delegates as it enables If you have any comments please the majority of the conference to be based contact the editors: Department of Criminology is on one site. Professor Yvonne Jewkes and Dr Neil Chakraborti, part of the Helen Baldock, to host the British Society of conference organising committee Department of Criminology, Criminology Conference 2010 alongside Professor Yvonne Jewkes and 154 Upper New Walk, conference coordinator Helen Baldock, Leicester, LE1 7QA It has been announced that the commented: T: +44 (0) 116 252 5780 Department of Criminology, University E: [email protected] of Leicester, has been successful in its “Being chosen to host this prestigious bid to host the annual British Society of event is a sign of how highly regarded Criminology Conference in 2010. Dr we are as a department and an Mark Simpson of the BSC said they institution. We look forward to were ‘very impressed by the facilities organising an exciting and innovative and the enthusiasm, ideas, and conference that will showcase not only PhD Studentship commitment of the team’. the criminological expertise we have here at the Department of Criminology but The British Society of Criminology has a also the wonderful facilities available at Applications are now being diverse membership of practitioners, policy- the University of Leicester and the accepted for one full-time makers and academics from the imaginative developments taking place funded PhD studentship in criminological community. The annual across the city.” Criminology. Please turn to page conference is hugely significant as it provides 4 for more details. criminologists from across the world with For more information about the BSC www.le.ac.uk/cp/news/ the opportunity to present the latest Conference 2010 please visit our website: phdstudentship.html findings from their research, to discuss their www.le.ac.uk/bscconference or contact experience of the criminal justice system and the conference team via email: to debate the key issues of the day. [email protected]. www.le.ac.uk/criminology 2 DEPARTMENT NEWS CRIMINOLOGY IN FOCUS: ISSUE 3 2009 argued, almost meaningless. This Scarman Lecture Series raises acute problems for policing, as it is often the case that basic questions Ghetto Security: Policing Post-Conflict Cities – Professor Alice Hills concerning the purposes of policing, its structure and organisation, and the local police to whom responsibility for allegiance and accountability of its street-level security is devolved; members, are unresolved. Yet despite traders and shopkeepers looking for these uncertainties it is typically the the stability and protection required police who are charged with the task for a stable commercial environment; of producing and maintaining security and local leaders of criminal or in post-conflict environments. political factions – are all likely to In the case of Baghdad and Basra maintain different understandings of Professor Hills explored how, between what security is, and what it requires 2003 and 2007, the Iraqi National of them and of others. These Police, rather than being national in differences and confusions are a part form or purpose, was in fact of the chaos that conflict causes, and constituted as a series of local gangs that post-conflict strategies must seek and militias. These groups, often in to address. competition with one another over Meanwhile, conventional liberal or power, resources and territories, western models assume a universal operated within walled-off districts and unified concept of security, that over time evolved into fiefdoms typically grounded in a doctrine of outside the control of the Coalition human rights, underpinned by a Provisional Authority or, later, the Iraqi model of policing as a shared public National Government. good, and accountable to a The reality of security as experienced democratically ordered system of by most Iraqis, and produced by their On January 21st 2009 the latest in government. ostensibly national institutions was, the series of Scarman Lectures for and largely remains, she argued, far 2008-9 was delivered by Alice Hills, Security is, however, always produced removed from the assumptions and Professor in Conflict and Security situationally and contextually, rather aspirations of both the Coalition at the University of Leeds, and a than in terms of such abstract ideals, Powers and the Iraqi National longstanding friend of the and in the case of Basra and Baghdad Government, notwithstanding the very Department of Criminology. from 2003, suggested Professor Hills, it is better understood as an elemental high costs in terms of both human life Professor Hills is a leading expert on condition associated with bare survival and monies invested in occupation and policing in Africa, and on urban in the immediate aftermath of conflict. police training. Iraq tests the extent to conflict and crisis situations. She is a which inclusive forms of security can member of the UN Department of Security in the post-conflict city be provided in post-conflict cities, she Peacekeeping Operations' International therefore has a very strong physical concluded. The reality of security in Policing Advisory Council and the dimension, and equally strong Iraq, rather than reflecting the official lecture, entitled ‘Ghetto Security’, exclusionary qualities. Exclusion – who rhetoric of universal freedom, coincided with the launch of her latest is protected, from whom, in which democracy and the rule of law, was book, Policing Post-Conflict Cities (Zed location, and for how long – is key in and largely remains one of chronic Books, 2009). such situations to how security is insecurity, barricaded neighbourhoods produced and expressed. This might and sectarian conflict. Rather than In the lecture Professor Hills focused take the form, for example, of a being surprised at this, we should upon the issue of security in post- particular local, ethnic or religious recognise it instead as normal in urban conflict cities, using as examples the group, secure within territorial limits – post-conflict situations. The case of recent cases of Baghdad and Basra. In at the level of street and district rather Iraq suggests that while ‘today’s broad post-conflict environments, she than the city as a whole – within definitions of security have normative argued, security – and its presence or timescales that can be measured in and analytic value’, they ignore the absence – is invariably a key issue, but days, or sometimes even hours, rather practical reality of security in post- one with many potential meanings than months or years. Security is conflict cities, where schemes of city- and applications that is often open to therefore local, limited, temporary and wide security and ambitious policing debate and misunderstanding. Various fragile: in other words, it is ghettoised. reform are likely to be both parties – such as temporary military unsuccessful and unrealistic. forces (whose first concerns are their In such cases western notions of civil own force protection and the society, human rights and democratic Dr Keith Spence, Lecturer in formation of a viable exit strategy); government are, Professor Hills Criminology CRIMINOLOGY IN FOCUS: ISSUE 3 2009 DEPARTMENT NEWS 3 COURSE PROFILE MP visits the Department MSc Community Safety of Criminology The MSc in Community Safety is a two year distance learning programme aimed at practitioners involved in policy making or implementation within the field of community safety. This includes those working for the police, local councils and voluntary organisations both in the UK and overseas. The MSc in Community Safety provides you with a detailed knowledge and understanding of the social theories and debates surrounding the key contemporary issues in community safety. Topics such as anti-social behaviour, hate crime, youth disorder, policing, victimisation and social exclusion are analysed and critically assessed, while the application of social, political and criminological theories are examined in-depth. The MSc Community Safety programme also provides practitioners with the research skills required to On Thursday 12 March 2009 Chris evaluate the effectiveness of current community safety initiatives. Huhne, Liberal Democrat Member of